Saturday - June 18, 2005
Silver Star
The CAG was killed in an ambush less than a
couple kilometers away. An amtrac hit a mine about 30 meters away. It was
totalled. At least seven 120mm mortar rounds landed within 200 meters. Our FAC
was shot in the hip and another Marine killed a little bit
earlier.
I was outside in the courtyard
helping organize stretcher teams, ensuring that the LZ was clear, keeping my
Marines focused on the job at hand. Twenty rounds of small arms fire starting
cracking by, each one getting closer and closer. The last few were a few feet
away, passing betwen two of my stretcher bearers. We finally took cover. The
fire was coming from one of two houses past where the mortars hit. From our
distance we couldn't tell which one, and as disciplined Marines we knew not to
shoot without positively identifying the target. One of those houses likely had
innocent families in it.
Nothing we did
was particularly noteworthy, only good for a story. As the official verdict
goes, we don't even merit a measley Combat Action Ribbon because we didn't
return fire. To the Marines, by some strange definition of the term we weren't
really in combat.
But if we were with
the Army National Guard, if we had returned fire, not only would we rate a
combat action ribbon, we'd probably get a Silver Star. In between getting lost
and causing Jessica Lynch to be taken prisoner, shirking responsibility for Abu
Ghraib, and dealing with mutinous motor transport companies, I guess the
National Guard is happy that one of their own actually fired a
bullet.
You see, the army has this feminist agenda. They
aren't allowed to put women in the infantry, so they put them in Military Police
and treat them as infantry. Except that they don't walk. Because if women were
required to go on a 40km, week and a half combat foot patrol, they would not
come back except on a stretcher. So I guess "military police" is a euphemism
for female wannabe infantry.
One of the
national guard's partially female so-called MP units got into a small fire
fight. They did what was expected and killed the enemy. Good job. In the
Marines they'd get a pat on the back. For us, that's just barely above the
minimum required just to get a Combat Action Ribbon. Well, we might award them
a Navy Achievement Medal, possibly a Navy Commendation Medal. Good work, and
definitely something to be proud
of.
But now the army feminist movement
can crow about how their women infantry, er, I mean military police, are
ferocious fighters. They actually use their weapons. And they didn't get lost.
And no one mutinied. And no international embarrassment resulted. I guess they
should encourage this behavior with an award of some
sort.
I don't begrudge these soldiers
their medals. They certainly deserve some recognition, and we all know that the
army and the army national guard are very loose with their medals. To not give
a medal in their culture would be a grave injustice.
But I resent that this incident is
being used to call for women to be allowed in combat. The army is disobeying
the spirit and the letter of the law by putting these women into combat
situations. This is unfair to the women who are recruited with the promise that
they would not be purposefully be put in combat, and it is disobedient to the
laws as written by our legislators and president, who alone have that
authority.
But the price of getting
these loosely awarded medals is to be in the army or the army national guard.
I'd much rather have the title Marine than a silver star with them.
Go Back to the Start, Do Not Collect $200 Send me your two cents
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